I didn’t realize that heart disease is the #1 killer of women – until I had my own heart attack in May of 2008.

I wish I knew before then what I have learned since. Heart disease not only kills more women each year than breast cancer, it kills more women than all cancers combined. Heart disease kills more women than men each year.

We know that for the last three decades, virtually all cardiac research has been done either exclusively on men, or with women represented in statistically insignificant numbers. Because of this, women are shockingly under-diagnosed and under-treated compared to male heart patients.

I am, unfortunately, living proof of that. I was sent home from the E.R. – misdiagnosed with acid reflux – in spite of presenting with textbook heart attack symptoms (crushing chest pain, pain radiating down my left arm, sweating and nausea). Two weeks of agonizing ongoing attacks later, I was hospitalized for an emergency angioplasty and implantation of a shiny new stainless steel stent in my left anterior coronary artery, which was 99% blocked.

In October 2008, five months after my heart attack, I became the first Canadian ever invited to attend the annual Mayo Clinic Science & Leadership Symposium for Women With Heart Disease in Rochester, Minnesota. This life-altering five days was part world-class cardiology lecture and part community activism bootcamp!

Since returning home to the West Coast from Mayo Clinic, I have devoted myself to helping educate other women about their biggest health threat. I volunteer to speak wherever and whenever my health allows – at Heart & Stroke Foundation events, at workplace staff meetings, at health care employee workshops, and at what has become my signature community education event: my ‘Pinot & Prevention’ parties!

I am passionate (some might say obsessed!) with helping to raise women’s awareness of heart disease from the unique grassroots perspective of a heart attack survivor and 2008 Mayo Clinic-trained community educator.

To this end, I’ve developed a website called Heart Sisters to help provide distinctive female-focused information about heart disease risks, prevention, and women’s heart attack symptoms that may surprise you.

Unable to return to work yet as Communications Coordinator at our local hospice/palliative care society, I feel like I have now found my life’s work through my voice while I am off work on medical leave.

I hope to prevent other women from going through what I did, to encourage other women to become their own best health advocates, and to demand equal health care, diagnosis and treatment to combat their most dangerous disease.

I am promoting awareness of gynaecological cancers, http://www.pantsmatters.org.uk, and know how hard it is to make a difference.I am sure people are more afraid of cancer than of heart attacks, and yet, as you have shown, there is more likelihood of dying this way.Good luck with your campaign and if you ever come to the UK perhaps you would consider being a Speaker at an event here

Hi Laurel – you’re right, it IS scary! I’ve met women heart attack survivors who were sent home from the E.R. with misdiagnoses like anxiety attack, gall bladder problems or even menopause (a great all-purpose diagnosis!)

‘WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women With Heart Disease’ is an excellent resource for info on the subject of women’s heart health: http://www.womenheart.org

This paper deals with the many women who were put on so-called heart-disease “prevention” drugs called STAT*NS, even though there is no evidence for this drug preventing anything in women, but plenty of evidence for the painful, life-altering and permanently disabling harm STA*INS cause. (*Compare the two asterixed words for complete spelling.)

My advice, as one who experienced that harm and disability: do not take cholesterol lowering medication if you are a woman.